Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry

An anecdote is a short, personal story that describes an incident related to the larger topic. Anaya’s essay employs multiple anecdotes, beginning with the importance of books in his childhood and how storytelling was vital to his formation. Another anecdote involves his friend, a Chicano poet, who categorized his best poetry as bilingual but submitted English-only poetry with his grant application; this anecdote provides a real-life example of self-imposed censorship. A final anecdote discusses how Anaya’s book Bless me, Ultima was burned by school board members in New Mexico, which shows the extreme lengths to which censorship can go. The build-up to this last anecdote creates a sort of rising action and climax in the essay, and it shows how literature can be liberating for some but very threatening for others.

Symbolism usually draws on tangible examples to talk about abstract concepts. The essay’s most prevalent symbol is that of tortillas, which signify Mexican American cultural elements. Tortillas are a staple of Mexican and Mexican American cuisine, and in the essay, they represent all of the elements unique to Chicano writing, such as the use of Spanish, street talk, folklore, and local history.